Nicholas Team Visits Well Pad and Meets with Pro- and Anti-Fracking Residents on Issues Surrounding Hydrofracking

Dean William L. Chameides led a Nicholas School fact-finding trip to six counties in Pennsylvania on June 11-15 to visit communities affected by shale gas development, tour industry sites, and meet with local stakeholders who represent diverse views on the controversial practice.

Chameides leads the annual trips to gain a deeper perspective on environmental issues of critical importance.

Accompanying him on the trip to Pennsylvania were Nicholas School Board of Visitors members Philip “Flip” Froelich, Virginia Parker and Michael Parker, and members of the school’s Office of Marketing and Communications.

Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change and director of the Center on Global Change, represented the Nicholas School faculty. On the first evening of the trip, he and PhD students Nathaniel Warner and Adrian Down presented an overview of their team’s peer-reviewed research on the environmental impacts of shale gas development, including its work to identify factors that may increase the risk of impacts to some private water wells. (See related story on page 16.)

Andrew Place, corporate director of public policy research at EQT Corporation, met with the group the following morning to share his views on the economic benefits shale gas development brings to the state and the safeguards his company employs to reduce harmful impacts on the environment and surrounding communities. EQT owns more than 14,000 productive wells and operates more than 11,400 miles of gathering and transmission pipelines. It employs 1,800 workers.

Place led the group on tours of an EQT well site that was being fracked, a compressor station and a producing well pad in southwestern Pennsylvania. At each site, he took pains to point out environmental safeguards: the triple steel-pipe well casings EQT uses to isolate natural gas, fracking fluids, flowback and wastewater from the environment; the sound-dampening acoustic walls and high-tech flow monitoring system at its compressor station; the solar panels used to power wellheads at its producing well pad.

The next day, members of the group traveled to the central Pennsylvania town of Williamsport to tour Eureka Resources, a water treatment and recycling facility that opened in 2008 to treat the growing volume of raw wastewater produced from gas well sites in the region.

John Staton, vice president of operations, told the group the plant can treat more than 200,000 gallons of wastewater and is licensed to discharge up to 300,000 gallons of treated water daily. He said the plant’s treatment process meets or exceeds wastewater standards put in place by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Eureka Resources uses a proprietary treatment process that involves pH adjustment, clarification to remove solids and heavy metals, and mechanical vapor recompression distillation. The resulting effluent, Staton said, is clean, distilled water ready for immediate reuse by gas well operators. Because of heavy demand, the company plans to open additional treatment plants in other parts of the state soon.

Later that afternoon, the Nicholas School group boarded helicopters for an aerial tour of shale gas facilities and nearby communities in Bradford and Susquehanna counties in northeastern Pennsylvania, to gain perspective on the pace and scale of shale gas development there in recent years. The tour included an hourlong stop in the town of Montrose, where members of the group met informally with residents to listen to their views on ‘fracking’ and learn how the shale gas boom has affected their community, for good and bad.

The day ended in neighboring Wayne County, where the group met with more than a dozen members of the Northern Wayne Property Alliance. The alliance is made up of landowners who want to be allowed to drill for shale gas on their land but can’t because of a moratorium on drilling in the Delaware River watershed, which includes their county. Members work in a variety of professions, including as forest consultants, land appraisers, farmers and university professors. Two are Duke forestry alums.

Over dinner, they told the Nicholas School group that they consider themselves to be both pro-environment and pro-drilling, and have written stringent safeguards into the drilling lease they negotiated with gas companies to reduce the risk of environmental harm.

Like everyone else, they want clean drinking water and a safe, healthy environment for their community, alliance members said, but they also want economic growth and believe with careful oversight they can have both. There is no documented proof that drilling has contaminated drinking water in Pennsylvania yet, members said, and considerable scientific consensus that increased natural gas production could benefit not only the economy, but also the environment and national security because it’s a clean-burning, domestic fuel.

Chameides and the group heard a less optimistic perspective the next day during a visit to the Fallon dairy farm in eastern Susquehanna County. The farm has been in the family for five generations, Pauline Fallon told them, and until recently was among the largest in the region.

In 2008, a gas well was drilled 2,500 feet from their barn and home. At first, no problems surfaced, but in time family members and animals alike started getting sick. Last fall, the cows stopped giving milk and pigeons that drank barn water began dying. A veterinarian diagnosed the herd with non-virulent Newcastle disease. About the same time, goats on the farm came down with listeriosis and tetanus.

Tests showed the farm water contained manganese levels 10 times higher than what’s advisable for dairy herds, but the gas company said there was no evidence of drilling-related contamination and it refused to truck in potable water for the barn or home. The Fallons began buying drinking water for their home, but lacking a feasible source of safe water for their animals, this March the family sold the herd and—temporarily at least—shuttered the farm.

“We’ve never had a water problem before, or any of these diseases,” said Fallon, who serves on the Susquehanna County Water and Soil Conservation District board, and holds high office in the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. “I’m not an activist and I understand that every issue has two sides. But this has put us out of business.”

The day continued with a stop at Salt Springs State Park, where a natural methane leak bubbles up to the surface through an ancient spring, and a visit to the home of Tammy and Matthew Manning, located a short drive outside the park in central Susquehanna County.

The Mannings told the group they began having water problems after nearby gas wells—visible in three directions from their backyard—were fracked and began producing. Their tap water turned dark gray, faucets blew off their stems and a granddaughter who lives with them began getting sick overnight. When the well pump cap in their yard started erupting, the Mannings called the state DEP and had their well tested. The tests showed alarmingly high levels of methane were building up in the well’s head space.

“They said the salt spring down the road had just migrated, and there was no way of knowing if drilling was to blame,” Tammy said.

To prevent an explosion, the Mannings’ well was vented and disabled and DEP installed a 1,100-gallon water tank outside their home to hold nonpotable household water. The company that owns the nearby gas wells says there is no evidence the methane is drilling-related. It has agreed to provide the family with nonpotable water but not drinking water, which the Mannings have to bring in daily themselves.

The Mannings filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this year; since then, a local pro-shale-gas website has run articles portraying them as dishonest moneygrubbers and the company has filed a motion to have the suit dismissed as groundless.

“That’s what they do to shut you up. They say you’re the ones causing the problem,” Tammy said. “But all I did was turn on the faucet.”

The day ended with another community dinner, this time with residents from the Montrose area. Some had barely spoken to one another in recent years because of their differing views.

A few vehemently opposed shale gas drilling; a few supported it, with reservations; most were unhappy but resigned to its continued presence in their community, at least for as long as natural gas prices keep it profitable.

The discussion grew heated at times, but by evening’s end, most participants agreed to keep talking—and listening. They agreed that if drilling is to continue, it needs to be done as safely and fairly as possible. Companies need to be held to a higher level of accountability in their dealing with landowners, and government needs to do more to reduce risks and assist those whose homes or livelihoods have been harmed.

“The people we met and the sites we toured on this trip gave us a much broader perspective and more nuanced understanding of the shale gas issue than we could have gained any other way,” said Chameides.

“Obviously, there’s still a lot more we need to learn about fracking,” he said. “The technology is evolving, and the science and the oversight needs to keep pace.”

Tim Lucas is the Nicholas School’s director of marketing communications.